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Vom künftigen Alter, Op 87 No 1

Introduction

By 1929 Strauss had most of his greatest operatic successes behind him. It is perhaps no surprise that his three late Rückert settings all have the epic scale of operatic perorations. Vom künftigen Alter is a rumination on the winter of old age. ‘My hair is white but my heart is still warm’—this is the meaning of Rückert’s metaphor, and Strauss takes his cue for a favourite device, beginning in one key (E flat minor) and immediately modulating to another (E major), with the halting, frozen rhythm of the opening gradually melting into the warmer, flowing textures that accompany the rest of the song. Paler harmonies express the withering of youth’s roses, richer colours depict the life that still courses through the singer’s veins. Meanwhile sweeping right-hand phrases suggest the orchestra that Strauss probably had in mind, although they are also typical of his more rhetorical piano-writing. For once prepared to tackle a poem already set by Schubert (as Greisengesang, D778), Strauss here achieves one of his finest, if least-known songs.

Recordings

Hyperion’s Strauss Lieder series is fast becoming a worthy successor to the seminal Schubert and Schumann Lieder sets on the label. This fourth volume features a veteran of these recordings, the great British baritone Christopher Maltman. Roger Vigno ...» More

The rime has frosted the roof of my house;
But I’ve kept warm in the parlour.
Winter has whitened the top of my head;
But the blood flows red through my heart.
The flush of youth in my cheeks, the roses
All have gone, gone one by one.
Where have they gone? down into my heart:
There they blossom as desired, as they used to do.
Have all this world’s rivers of joy run dry?
A quiet stream still flows through my breast.
Have all the field’s nightingales fallen silent?
Inside me, secretly, one still stirs.
She sings: Master of the house! lock your door,
Lest the cold world penetrate the parlour.
Shut out the harsh breath of reality,
Offer shelter only to the fragrance of dreams.
I have wine and roses in every song,
And still have a thousand such songs.
From evening till morning and through many nights
I shall sing to you of youth and the pain of love.